


feels like I’ve loved you (from a long time ago)

by amaelamin



Category: NCT (Band)
Genre: Canon-Typical Mentions of Death, Fate & Destiny, Inspired by Goblin (K-drama), M/M, Romance, Supernatural Elements
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2020-11-17
Updated: 2020-11-17
Packaged: 2021-03-09 20:55:02
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 7,358
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/27602417
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/amaelamin/pseuds/amaelamin
Summary: this is a remix of an old fic based on the kdrama goblin because i've been thinking about hyuckil fated lovers these days ;; please read the notes.
Relationships: Lee Donghyuck | Haechan/Moon Taeil
Comments: 11
Kudos: 70





	feels like I’ve loved you (from a long time ago)

**Author's Note:**

> loosely based off the kdrama goblin; the goblin in question is a human who has become immortal due to wanting revenge such that he cannot die/let go naturally, and the only way for him to be released from this world is to find a fated person called the goblin's bride who will be able to break the spell on him. there are grim reapers in this world and he is frienemies with one of them who moves in with him through a misunderstanding (they both accidentally rent out the same house).  
> powers that the goblin has: can teleport, make gold, control the weather, levitate, etc etc. 
> 
> title is from the goblin theme song by punch and chanyeol.

Donghyuck sniffles loudly, almost daring the tear welling up in his left eye to spill over, and watches the smoke from the blown-out candle waft past his face and get whisked away by the strong sea breeze that’s ruffling his hair and uniform. He’s glad his birthday isn’t in winter.

He looks down at his cake and laughs a little – his birthday cake that isn’t so much a full cake as a sliver – and that’s when the tear stops clinging to his bottom lashes and lets go, plopping onto his pants and disappearing quickly. 

“Can I disappear like that too?” Donghyuck asks the nothingness only half-mockingly. “Mom?”

Donghyuck takes a deep breath. If Mom was here she’d tell me to stop crying, for one thing, Donghyuck thinks. And to keep my head down and live quietly and thankfully. And to make good plans. 

Taeil watches Donghyuck dip one finger into the cake’s frosting and absentmindedly eat it. Taeil is thoroughly confused – he had been sitting down to dinner, but now here he is, surrounded only by waves and nothing and nobody except a scrawny high-schooler trying not to cry into his slice of cake and staring hard out at the sea as if he wants to fight it with his bare hands. 

“Happy fifteenth birthday to me,” the boy announces, and Taeil frowns slightly. He can’t see the boy’s future, no matter how hard he tries – other humans have theirs bursting out at him in vivid pictures even if he probes lightly. This boy has nothing. 

Taeil leaves.

*

Taeil takes a deep breath and lifts one hand to his face, slowly wiping the pieces of cream cake away as the boy shoots to his feet and backs away almost to the edge of the jetty.  
“Did you have to throw your cake at me?” Taeil asks, voice tightly controlled.

“Who are you?” the boy demands. “You – one second you were there and then-”

Taeil takes another deep breath. One year later – the boy is taller, definitely; some baby fat is gone, too. And there’s a bigger difference in him – more defiance, and the fifteen year-old holding back tears almost seems a distant memory now. Taeil looks at the blown-out candle by his feet, still smoking slightly.

“I will explain, but I believe I asked you first. Who are you, and how do you keep summoning me?”

“Summoning you? What are you talking about?” 

“You did it one year ago, too. Same place, you with the cake, suddenly summoning me here. How are you doing it? I demand to know.”

“One year ago?” the boys asks in deep confusion. “You were here one year ago?”

Taeil takes one step towards the boy and the boy backs off dangerously near falling off into the dark water.

“Look, be careful-” Taeil starts, but the boy cuts him off, darting forward to grab his schoolbag. In the bright moonlight Taeil sees fingerprints – five neat bruises along his bicep – that are quickly gone from sight as the boy retreats backwards down the jetty away from Taeil and the sea.

“I don’t know you, creep. Stay away from me.”

*

Taeil glances at his calendar. It’s today, without a doubt. June the sixth has been hanging heavy on his mind for weeks now; once is a coincidence. Two years in a row is slightly harder to explain away – and if tonight the boy summons him once more then he’s not going to leave without an explanation.

It’s way past eleven o’clock at night now, and he’s been completely useless and distracted the whole day. Humans should not be able to summon him like this – no one is able to summon him, not even the Reapers; they have power only over mortals.

That thought gives him pause. It’s been a while since he’s thought of himself as human; at first he clung desperately to the word even as it became apparent he was no longer part of that world. After a while he disdained the term – he is not human. He has not been for centuries.

Five minutes to midnight.

Four.

Taeil dodges the thrown cake well this time, letting instinct take over and reacting before he could even properly see it heading his way.

He stares at the boy and the boy stares back, though this time with much more wariness and care than the pure adrenaline and shock of before. Seventeen years look good on him – many children go through painfully awkward growth, but this boy is eagerly welcoming the extra height and bulk with open arms.

“Who are you?” The boy’s voice only wavers slightly.

“I-“ Taeil begins, and then wonders how to continue. This boy is clearly something supernatural, but from the looks of it he has no idea of his own powers. “You keep wasting your cake,” he ends up saying instead.

“I wouldn’t be if you didn’t keep showing up like this and scaring me,” the boy retorts.

“You don’t have to be scared of me,” Taeil tries to sound reassuring.

“I’m not,” the boy declares contrarily. “And you still haven’t told me who you are. Or what you are.”

In the moonlight Taeil can see the boy’s left cheekbone is smudged with a fading bruise, green-tinged edges spread over the delicate skin. He thinks of bruises in the shape of fingerprints.

“Have you heard of goblins?”

“Goblins,” the boy repeats, staring hard. Taeil knows he looks like any other human; up until the point he disappears, or levitates, or teleports – a cool bag of tricks had come with his eternal punishment. “Goblins don’t exist. That’s a fairytale, for – for kids.”

“Fairytales are not always made up,” Taeil answers, already feeling strange and self-conscious. “I would also like to know what you are, since you’re able to summon me.”

“I didn’t do anything,” the boy replies, looking at his ruined cake. “You said that last year, too. That I summoned you, but I didn’t do anything.”

“Are you lying to me?” Taeil narrows his eyes. 

“Why would I lie?” the boy bursts out. “If I was summoning you for a reason I would have already done whatever it is I wanted. How many cakes do I have to throw at you before you believe me?”

Taeil almost wants to smile at the boy’s boldness, though it’s not so much bravery or defiance as a sense of – resignation? Not ‘I may get into trouble for this’ but ‘I’m going to be in trouble anyway so I might as well’ – Taeil looks once more at the bruise on his cheek.

“Did someone hit you?”

The boy’s hand flies to his face. “No.”

“Really.”

“…It was a slap. Not a hit.”

“A slap bad enough to give you that bruise?”

“She slapped me with a book.”

The boy looks away, then back again at Taeil, eyes bright. “Can you scare my aunt for me? It doesn’t have to be something big. Just – do your magic and suddenly appear by her bed at night or something and terrify her.”

“Does she hit you often?”

“I’m getting better at dodging,” the boy says, and then smiles quickly and briefly. “Like you.”

“Why are you always celebrating your birthday out here alone?”

The boy doesn’t answer, only points to his cheek, and Taeil thinks he understands better now, in the awkward silence that falls.

“The least you can do is buy me another cake,” the boy says eventually, looking up at Taeil with eyes half-hopeful half-calculating. 

“Where am I going to get a cake at this time of the night?” Taeil scoffs.

“Then being a goblin or whatever isn’t that big of a deal, is it?” the boy scoffs right back. “Can’t even do this one simple thing.” He bends down to get his backpack, and Taeil grits his teeth. It doesn’t matter – he can just walk away. Whatever or whoever this boy is, proving himself to him is not a priority.

He could teleport to some country nearby that’s a few hours behind them, where the bakeries would still be open; but right then he remembers the Reaper’s strawberry tarts, taking up space in his fridge, with a big ‘ _if you eat this I will make life very difficult for you_ ’ note taped to it.

“How do you feel about strawberry tarts?” Taeil asks, and the boy lights up. 

“Wait here just one second.”

*

Donghyuck checks around him one last time to see if he’s really alone behind the gardening shed right at the back of the school – it’s late afternoon, club activities are over, teachers should all be on the way home by now, and the school gates will be closing in an hour. Just enough time for this. 

He could, of course, smoke outside of school where getting caught by a teacher wouldn’t be such a big threat, but then where would be the fun in that?

He unbuttons his shirt to get at the little secret pocket sewn onto the inside where he keeps his few sticks and shakes the box of matches out of his bag. Matches, not a lighter – matches don’t look suspicious, whereas a lighter is just a confession of guilt, and a lighter is too heavy to hide in his shirt’s secret pocket anyway. He’s rather proud of himself for figuring this one out – he aced last week’s bag spotcheck because of this genius move. 

He lights up and watches the match burn until it’s almost to his fingers before blowing it out. 

“Wha – what are you doing?” Taeil demands, making Donghyuck inhale too fast and choke on the cigarette smoke in his shock at Taeil’s appearance. 

“You’re too young to smoke. Put that out right now,” Taeil takes the cigarette from a wheezing and coughing Donghyuck and stomps on it, waiting for Donghyuck to come back to the land of the living.

“What is this place? Is this your school? You’re smoking in school?”

“Why are you here?” Donghyuck asks, tears running from his eyes from his near-death experience. “I don’t have any birthday cake this time. How did you get here?”

“You’re asking me. You’re the one who keeps summoning me,” Taeil complains. “Also I doubt it’s the birthday cake that’s doing it. Anyway, you shouldn’t be smoking at all, not just in school.”

“It’s none of your business!”

Taeil glares at him. “If you keep summoning me like this I’m making it my business. Do you think I have nothing else better to do with my time?”

“Then go and do it!” Donghyuck yells. “Leave me alone!”

“You leave me alone!” Taeil yells back, and leaves in a huff.

Donghyuck stares at the empty spot where Taeil was just a second ago and then at the used, burnt-out match on the ground. He slowly takes out another match, looking at it contemplatively, and lights it.

“Three, two, one,” Donghyuck whispers, and then blows out the flame.

Taeil blinks, looking at Donghyuck once more – one second not there, the next second solid and present. 

“What?” Taeil demands, exasperated, and Donghyuck punches the air in delight. 

“I figured it out!”

*

Taeil comes home to find that the Reaper has filled his bed with soil. _I told you not to take the strawberry tarts_ says the note lying neatly on top of the mess. The effects are always negligible, these pranks they play on each other, but clean-up is always such a drag.

“The boy can summon me with fire,” he tells Ten when Taeil finally finds him, lying on Taeil’s sofa reading one of Taeil’s books. Trust a Reaper to act like the king of everything. 

“Don’t even talk to me if you don’t have more strawberry tarts with you,” Ten cuts him off, and Taeil takes a deep calming breath before disappearing himself and reappearing ten minutes later, holding out a box full of the too-expensive pastries.

“The boy can summon me with fire,” he repeats, and Ten sits up, delightedly taking the box. “The boy with no future that I can see. He just has to blow out a flame and that summons me.”

“No future and has the power to summon a goblin, huh,” Ten muses, slightly muffled around a mouthful of tart. “Maybe he’s a goblin himself.”

Taeil gives him a disgusted look. “The whole point of being a goblin is that you know the curse that’s been put on you. And he’s just a child, only seventeen. Please focus.”

“What’s his name? Maybe I can search him up in the records.”

“Oh,” Taeil looks sheepish. “I forgot to ask.”

Ten just gives him a Look. “Next time he summons you make that be the first thing you ask him. I can’t search the records without his full and original name.”

“I wi-”

Taeil disappears. Ten blinks, and then goes back to his book.

*

“Can’t you give me some sort of warning before you do this?” Taeil pleads, Donghyuck standing before him holding a smoking match. They’re standing now in a park, the sun setting painting everything in a distractingly beautiful gold, and Taeil is too worked up to pay attention to how disoriented he is. “What if I’m – I’m – doing something you shouldn’t see-”

“Oh?” Donghyuck raises an eyebrow, mischief personified. 

“Anyway,” Taeil clears his throat, refusing to let this boy fluster him any further. “You can’t just keep summoning me like this. There should be rules. Why did you call me this time? I barely left you half an hour ago.”

“Just because. I’m curious about you. I’ve never met a goblin before. I haven’t asked all my questions yet.”

“What’s your name?” Taeil asks quickly, remembering Ten’s words. 

“Donghyuck. What’s yours? How old are you? Where did you come from? What exactly is a goblin?”

“What’s your, uh, full name?” Taeil repeats delicately, ignoring the curious look Donghyuck gives him. 

“Why?”

“Because I want to know who exactly it is that has the power to summon me. You’re the only human so far in all my life who’s done it.”

“I’m that special, am I? I knew it.”

“Your name.”

“Lee Donghyuck. Of the Daejeon Lees. That’s where my mother’s from, anyway. So, come on. Answer me.”

Donghyuck hunkers down in the shade of a tree among the fallen autumn leaves and pats the pile of leaves next to him. 

“Don’t you need to eat dinner? I’ll tell you everything you need to know as we eat.”

Donghyuck looks up at him from the ground, and Taeil is struck in that moment of just how young Donghyuck looks. He really is still just a child; and it is so difficult to imagine him as anything more than a poor kid in bad circumstances. But for some reason this boy is special – the bruise on his cheek is even more obvious now in the light, and Taeil wonders what Donghyuck’s teachers had to say about it. Taeil hopes that the reason why he cannot see Donghyuck’s twenties and thirties and forties and why Donghyuck has the power to summon a goblin isn’t yet more bad news.

Taeil puts out a hand to him and Donghyuck looks at it suspiciously for a moment before he takes it and allows Taeil to pull him to his feet. 

“What do you like to eat? Anything at all.”

“Kimchi jjigae,” Donghyuck answers promptly, making Taeil laugh. 

“Sure, but – I’m feeling generous here. What’s your favourite non-Korean food to eat?”

“I don’t know,” Donghyuck shrugs. “I’ve never really had the chance to try a lot of other food.”

“What do you think about sushi? Japan is nicer than Korea this time of year.”

“Japan?” Donghyuck asks, eyes wide. “What do you mean Japan-”

Taeil reaches for Donghyuck’s hand once more and the next second the park is empty.

*

“His name is Lee Donghyuck,” Taeil tells Ten, trying to peer over his shoulder to get a look at the List of the Living. Ten tsk-s at him, elbowing him a little to get Taeil to stop crowding him. “Birthday June sixth.”

Ten scans the list, stops, and then scans the list once more, slower this time. 

“What?” Taeil asks impatiently.

“He’s not on here,” Ten says, surprised. “Are you sure Lee Donghyuck is his real name? And his birthday is really the sixth of June?”

“As far as he knows, yes,” Taeil replies. “What does this mean?”

Ten looks at Taeil. “Every single human alive right now is on the List of the Living. Either this child is not actually alive… or he’s not actually human.”

“He’s alive, that part is for sure,” Taeil says. “Whether he’s really human… if not human, then what?”

“He’s not a ghost, he’s not a Reaper, he’s not a goblin,” Ten ticks off his fingers. “He’s just a human boy who apparently has no future, is not in the List of the Living, and has powers over goblins. What are you going to do?”

_“We’re in Japan?!” Donghyuck yelled, running first in one direction and then back to Taeil, and then off in another direction again like he couldn’t make up his mind what to do. “Japan???”_

_He had wolfed down the sushi Taeil had ordered for him in a little place in Shibuya he favoured, and then refused to let Taeil bring him home for hours, just wanting to walk and walk and walk down endless Japanese roads and streets, soaking up the unfamiliar language and sights and sounds, eyes wide and mouth hanging open in awe and excitement._

_“Donghyuck, it’s almost midnight. I need to get you home.”_

_“But-”_

_“We can come back anytime.”_

_“Any-” Donghyuck stopped dead, making people flow around him like a stone in a stream. “You mean that? You really mean that?”_

_Taeil swallowed. What was he getting himself into with this kid? “Within reason. You still have to go to school, for one thing. But when you’re done with classes and you – I guess, if you don’t have homework or something, then – yes.”_

_“You would bring me anywhere I wanted?” Donghyuck asked slowly. “Why?”_

“I don’t know,” Taeil admits, to Ten, to Donghyuck, and to himself.

*

They go back to Japan three more times, and then: Canada. Germany. Hawaii. Indonesia. Alaska. Norway. Fiji. Mount Everest (Taeil said no) – India instead. Donghyuck is late for school eight times, and gets detention for a month.

(“Can’t you turn back time to get me to school when I need to be? Detention sucks,” Donghyuck complains.

“Nothing on earth has power over time, Donghyuck,” Taeil tells him.)

Donghyuck summons him on other times to: help him study for a Chemistry test; play football; go with him to try to get an after-school job; get one-for-one bubble tea, both of which he then proceeded to drink; but most times, just to talk. Once it is an accident – 

_Donghyuck turns away from the stove, putting down a rag too carelessly close to the fire as he reaches for salt to add to the soup he’s boiling for dinner that night. It’s already late, and he hasn’t been home to cook for the family for four days already; his aunt is becoming unbearable._

_“How much longer are you going to take?” comes the unkind shout from the living room just as Donghyuck turns back in a panic to see the rag is on fire. He quickly blows on it, flapping his hands at the rag for good measure, and the next thing he knows Taeil is standing next to him in his aunt’s kitchen. They stare at each other for a second, dumbfounded, before Donghyuck cracks up and has to clap both hands over his mouth to keep his aunt and cousins from hearing him._

“You two are getting awfully close,” Ten observes casually one evening from his sofa – it is no longer even remotely Taeil’s any longer – and Taeil narrows his eyes at Ten.

“Don’t say it like that. The boy has no friends, Ten. His mother died when he was nine and he’s been living with his horrible aunt since then, and she used to hit him. Now he’s too big for that she’s stopped mostly but it still doesn’t keep her from saying all sorts of terrible things to him. Wouldn’t you feel sorry for him?”

“Given my line of work I try not to have feelings of any kind towards humans, so, no,” Ten answers evenly. “But what did you say – no friends? Why not?”

“He can see ghosts,” Taeil explains. “His classmates are all freaked out by him. I have to say it is slightly creepy to see him walk around someone you can’t see, or turn to look at something that isn’t there. And he says they talk to him.”

“He can see ghosts?” Ten says, sitting up. “Wait – wait. You said something about him when he was nine?”

“His mother died,” Taeil repeated. “What is it?”

“Did he tell you her name?”

“Kang Eunsong, if I remember right. He took me to her grave once. Ten, what _is it_?”

Ten disappears and then comes back with a huge binder labelled ‘2012’. “This is everyone that died in 2012, eight years ago when the boy was nine years old. His mother should be in here… Kang Eunsong. Kang… Eun- Yes, here she is. And this answers everything.”

Ten holds out a death certificate. “Kang Eunsong, hit and run. Missing soul, finally collected nine years after she was supposed to die in another car accident. I remember this because I went to the house to collect her son too, but he’d left before I could find him. Both of them had been on the missing soul list, but because her son had died when he was still in the womb he had no name of his own. Do you have any idea how much paperwork missing souls create?”

“Ten, I don’t understand.”

Ten leans forward. “Taeil, humans who can see ghosts are humans who have died, even for just a second. Sometimes it’s a heart attack, or a stroke, or they drown before someone gives them CPR. Kang Eunsong and her son both died seventeen years ago in that car accident, but someone brought them back to life. She must have been pregnant with him at the time. Get it?”

Taeil stares at him.

“That’s what missing souls are. Humans that do not show up on the List of the Living because technically, they’re dead. That’s why you can’t see the boy’s future. That’s why his name isn’t in the List. He’s supposed to be dead.”

_“Please help me.”_

_The strangled whisper nearly escapes his attention, but he hears it nonetheless, soft as it is. It’s desperate, and strident, for all its lack of strength – and Taeil battles with himself. Helping humans never comes to any good, in the end._

_“Please… my baby… save him.”_

_Taeil leaves the rooftop and touches down, feet crunching into the snow as he approaches the woman lying in a steadily-growing pool of her own blood, skid marks of a car speeding off ugly against the pure snow that’s been falling all day._

_“Please…”_

_He’s here now, and he cannot ignore this; he cannot ignore this woman pleading for the life of her child, as sentimental as that sounds. He’s seen so many people die, over the years. Honestly, one – or two, as it is in this case – more would not matter._

_He watches the breath go out of her and her body sag against the hard road, the ebb of blood out through her wounds slowing. How many humans has he killed without a thought during his own lifetime? They did not matter to him then. Humans die by the thousands every day._

_It may not matter to him but it would matter to her, Taeil thinks finally, before putting out his hand and giving her and her baby back their lives._

“Oh, gods, it was you, wasn’t it?” Ten asks with intense annoyance, watching Taeil’s face as he remembers. “You’re the reason why this boy is alive now. You’re the reason I have been searching for him for the last seventeen years with no head or tail to start with! Missing souls cannot be allowed to run around like this!”

“So what will you do now you know his name?” Taeil asks quietly, and Ten stills at his tone. 

“I have to do my job, Taeil,” Ten answers. 

“You have to kill him?”

“He’s already dead,” Ten stresses. “He’s not supposed to be alive.”

“That makes no difference,” Taeil argues, standing up. “He’s alive anyway. Are you telling me you’re going to take his life?”

Ten looks at him calmly until Taeil sinks back down onto the sofa. “It’s admirable you want to protect him, Taeil, but-”

“It’s not fair. He’s so young.”

“You do realise he will die one day no matter what?”

“After a full life. When he’s old!”

“You don’t know that. What if he gets hurt? What if he dies of some terrible injury and suffers?”

“He won’t.”

“Why, because you’ll be there to protect him? His entire life?”

Ten’s voice rings out like a slap and Taeil looks away. “He’s lived eight years with a woman who’s supposed to be his family but has made his life miserable. He has no friends because nobody wants to be friends with someone who can see the dead. Both of these things are because of me, Ten. But what was I supposed to do? Just let her die? With her unborn baby? She _begged_ me.”

“It might have been for the best,” Ten says softly.

“Promise me, Ten. You will not go near him.”

Ten sighs, and closes his binder with a snap. “You are the most stubborn bastard I have ever met. Just – keep him out of my sight.”

*

“You’re awfully good at dodging questions about your life,” Donghyuck says, swinging his feet off the edge of the jetty, the birthday cake sitting between them with candles waiting to be lit and wished upon. One big candle to symbolise ten years, and eight smaller ones. “I’ve known you for a year and all I’ve managed to get out of you is that you were supposed to die about a thousand years ago; you’ve had a curse put on you that doesn’t _let_ you die but you won’t tell me why; you can make gold out of nothing; and that your full name is Moon Taeil. You’ve lived in many different countries but you come back here every half-century or so, and you can speak Japanese and English and French and blah blah blah blah. Why won’t you tell me anything interesting? Though the making gold out of nothing part is very interesting. I am very, very interested in that bit.”

“I’m sorry you have not been entertained sufficiently,” Taeil mock-glares at Donghyuck out of the corner of his eye. “I’m sorry I’m not that fascinating.”

“I think you’re much more fascinating than you let on,” Donghyuck says, and then takes a quick breath, as if nervous. “For example, you’ve never talked about that sword you carry around on your back.”

Taeil goes completely still, even as the wind around them begins to pick up. Donghyuck grabs the cake protectively – Taeil’s emotions don’t always run away with themselves like this, and Donghyuck worries he may bring a thunderstorm.

“You can see the sword?” Taeil asks, voice quiet above the sound of the wind. 

“Yes.”

“For how long?”

“Always. That’s why I was so shocked when I first saw you – very few things scare me, you know, because of the seeing ghosts thing – but that night the sword wasn’t on your back, it was – sticking right out of you. Glowing green and transparent, while the rest of you was solid – I’d never seen anything like that before. Sometimes it’s strapped to your back, sometimes it’s bloody, but only when I look at it out of the corner of my eye. When I look at you straight on sometimes it disappears.”

Taeil is silent for a while, and then he laughs – short and curt. 

“What is it?” Donghyuck asks warily. 

“Sometimes fate works in really strange ways,” Taeil says, half to himself. “This is the reason I saved you that night.”

“What are you talking about? Don’t keep secrets!”

Taeil turns to Donghyuck, and begins to talk. He tells him of his life, when he was alive – properly alive, a warrior so powerful his own king feared him and had him declared a traitor; watching his family be murdered; impaled by his own sword and cursed with immortality; centuries alone with only generations of caretakers for companionship – how the wide earth shrinks painfully when you have endless amounts of time to travel it with. 

“My thirst for vengeance was so great that I couldn’t die. But even after having my revenge – the king’s death didn’t change anything. My family was dead. My wife, my household – and only then I realised that having my revenge didn’t end the curse. I wasn’t able to die, and I won’t be able to die until I find someone who can pull out the sword.”

Taeil looks at Donghyuck, all agog at his story, and has to smile. “It sounds very melodramatic, doesn’t it? An overwrought metaphor for revenge and letting go.”

“What did you mean just now, when you said you saved me?”

Taeil shrugs helplessly. “You were never supposed to be born. Your mother, when she was expecting you – she was hit by a car. She was supposed to die that night, and you along with her, but she asked me to save you. So I did. I’m the reason you can see ghosts – because only humans who have died, even briefly, can see into the other world. I’m sorry, Donghyuck,” he implores. 

“Sorry?” Donghyuck repeats, frowning. “Why are you sorry?”

“I gave you this life. Look how wonderful it is.”

Donghyuck doesn’t answer straight away, looking out over the waves and playing with the lighter Taeil had brought to help light his birthday cake candles. 

“My mother knew she was living on borrowed time,” he says eventually. “It makes sense now. She was always telling me what to do in case something happened to her. And when something in the end did happen to her… she didn’t seem very shocked about it. Just regretful.”

“Regretful?” Taeil asks, unsure. 

“She came back to see me,” Donghyuck says, and then at the horrified look on Taeil’s face he rolls his eyes. “I was used to seeing ghosts by then, even at nine years old. And I was thankful for it. I got to say goodbye.”

“I’m sorry,” Taeil whispers once more. 

“It’s not your fault. You didn’t know what would happen, I think,” Donghyuck muses. “And would I prefer to be alive right now or dead like I should be? That’s not something I can answer, either. So don’t be sorry.”

“You’re strangely mature for your age,” Taeil exhales. “Suddenly so grown-up.”

Donghyuck smiles and lights the candles, holding up the cake to his face so that the orange light of the flames play off his skin and sparkle in his eyes. “Eighteen years old. That is rather grown-up.”

“Don’t get ahead of yourself,” Taeil cuts in. “You’re still a child.”

“To someone a thousand years old, sure,” Donghyuck says, grinning. “Grandpa.”

“Blow out your candles,” Taeil tells him flatly.

Donghyuck closes his eyes for a moment, and then blows out all nine candles in one big puff. Taeil takes the cake from him to help cut out two slices, Donghyuck watching him quietly.

“Finish your story.”

Taeil doesn’t look at him. “What story?”

“The part where I’m the one who’s fated to pull out your sword and finally let you die. That’s it, right? That’s why I can see your sword?”

Taeil looks up at him and then away again, small frown between his brows as he busies himself with the cake. 

“ _Taeil_.”

“You should call me hyung,” Taeil mutters. 

“ _Hyung_.”

Taeil finally stops. “What do you want me to say?”

“There’s more to the story, isn’t there?”

Taeil shoves a slice of the cake at Donghyuck, and takes a big bite out of his.

“Hyung, for fuck’s sake.”

“Language!” Taeil scolds immediately, little bits of cake spraying in Donghyuck’s direction. 

“What aren’t you telling me?”

Taeil sighs deeply, looking up at the stars as he finishes chewing. “The one who’s supposed to be able to see the sword and pull it out is called the Goblin’s Bride. That’s the rest of the story, Donghyuck.”

“Bride?” Donghyuck begins, puzzled. “As in bride and groom? But isn’t a bride a girl?”

“It’s 2020, Donghyuck, get with it,” Taeil jokes hollowly. “You asked, anyway. So I told you.”

“I’m supposed to marry you?”

“This is why I didn’t want to tell you!”

“I’m a bit young to be married, I think.”

“Nobody’s proposing marriage to you, Donghyuck, don’t worry.”

“You don’t seem very happy about this.”

“You’re a child.”

“No, I’m not, I’m an adult. I just turned eighteen. So what am I supposed to do?”

“Nothing! You don’t have to do anything!”

“But don’t you want to die?”

Taeil opens his mouth, and the words dissolve into air on his tongue. Donghyuck holds his gaze steadily until Taeil drops it, feeling like it’s slightly hard to breathe. _Yes, I want to die. I want it more than anything in the world._

“You don’t have to worry about that,” Taeil tells him finally. “It isn’t your responsibility.”

“It is, though, if I’m the first one in a thousand years to be able to see the sword,” Donghyuck says reasonably. “Oh! This explains why I can summon you, doesn’t it?”

Taeil nods, resigned. 

“Well, I want a long honeymoon,” Donghyuck begins, and Taeil nearly smushes the remainder of his cake into Donghyuck’s face.

*

Taeil takes Donghyuck travelling – he insists on hiring tutors for Donghyuck to make up for missed school, but the way Donghyuck is beginning to blossom upon the realisation that he doesn’t actually need to ever go back to his aunt’s house weakens Taeil’s resolve to make Donghyuck go back home, go back to school, go back to his old life. Donghyuck learns to paint in Paris, and takes up cooking with a passion in Florence. He makes Taeil bring him back to that one tiny sushi restaurant in Shibuya every few months and is soon making his own sushi, which Taeil has to grudgingly accept is exceptionally good. Donghyuck takes up dance, and then singing, and gleefully burns all his math textbooks. 

“Does living this way make you my sugar daddy?” Donghyuck innocently asks one day during dinner, and Taeil splutters and nearly chokes; the look on Donghyuck’s face one of pure joyful mischief.

“Lee Donghyuck,” Taeil warns. “I will drop you in the middle of Russia and leave you there. Don’t you dare go around telling people we have that sort of relationship!”

“Oooh let’s go to Russia!” Donghyuck perks up instantly, teasing forgotten. 

Watching Donghyuck embrace life sometimes makes Taeil forget he wants to die. Life seems less tired, less flat, when you’re around a gangly teenager throwing himself with full enthusiasm at the myriad wonders the world has to offer; it seems like there are new things to discover once more, new things to enjoy. 

“You should learn how to rap,” Donghyuck tells him one day over the authentic pasta dinner Donghyuck had proudly cooked.

“No,” Taeil answers, but he finds himself typing in ‘rap’ into his Spotify chart search anyway. It is an Experience.

They have terrible fights, too – over the smallest things, and both their stubborn natures and Donghyuck’s bad temper flare up into something explosive. This is also new – Taeil hasn’t argued with anyone in centuries. He never thought yelling at someone over white clothes turned pink in the wash could feel like a release, even as he’s following Donghyuck’s stomping footsteps up the stairs in order to cajole him into a trip outside for new adventures – always new adventures. Donghyuck makes him feel alive, and he snorts at himself for thinking that. He truly is a grandpa.

It’s three years before Donghyuck kisses him, under strategically-placed mistletoe in Taeil’s Korean house – back once more because Donghyuck was missing real kimchi. Taeil has no idea where Donghyuck picked up the mistletoe, and he resolves to throw it away as he gently moves Donghyuck away from him. 

“No, Hyuckie,” he says softly. 

Donghyuck turns red in humiliation, which makes Taeil hug him in apology. 

“I think I should be offended,” Donghyuck mumbles – he’s so tall now, taller than Taeil – but hugs Taeil back anyway. “Aren’t you defying fate?”

“Shut up,” Taeil tells him affectionately.

Donghyuck begins to spend more time away from Taeil – he goes to work in a bakery, then a suit-and-tie company, then a music shop, then takes up competitive yoyo-playing; he makes friends and connections effortlessly, Taeil notes, with a pride he’d forgotten he could feel. 

“How do you manage the ghost-seeing thing?” Taeil asks, and Donghyuck shrugs. 

“Somehow they don’t seem to mind as much.”

“Children can be brutal,” Taeil tells him reassuringly, thinking of friendless teenaged Donghyuck.

“Well, I don’t blame them. It’s hard to understand,” Donghyuck says. “I think I wanted to scare them, too, in school.”

Taeil wonders when it is that Donghyuck grew up, and he thinks about Ten, whom he hasn’t seen in years; making good on his promise and staying away from Donghyuck. This is Donghyuck’s borrowed time. Is he also fated to die in another car crash?

When Donghyuck gets his driving license Taeil doesn’t sleep properly for two weeks.

It’s another two years before Donghyuck realises Taeil’s feelings for him before even Taeil does, and the first thing Donghyuck says to him is – 

“I can’t believe it’s taken you this long to fall in love with me.”

The second thing Donghyuck says to him is – 

“Do I pull out the sword now?”

And Taeil doesn’t let him say another word.

Taeil realises, finally, the genius of the curse. To be motivated by revenge to the point that it drives your entire existence, and to be only able to be released by making the one you love have to kill you in turn. What kind of release can there be? 

Times passes, too quickly. Nights last the blink of an eye. Kisses last even shorter. For the first time in his life, Taeil fears death when he’s been craving it for as long as he can remember; not only his own, but Donghyuck’s. Often the selfish thought crosses his mind that before anything can happen to Donghyuck he should get Donghyuck to release him first – he will never know the agony of a life without Donghyuck then, but immediately after such thoughts comes the image of Donghyuck alone and grieving him and Taeil shuts down mentally and emotionally. There is no answer to this. Donghyuck is the only one who can release him; but because of Donghyuck Taeil refuses to die.

One year turns into two, and then ten, and then twenty, thirty. Forty. Fifty. Sixty. The world is nothing like the one it was when he first met Donghyuck on that jetty, and Donghyuck now is nothing like that Donghyuck, either. Donghyuck traces the wrinkles on his own hands with shaky fingers and then the smooth skin of Taeil’s face, the black of his hair while picturing in his mind’s eye the white of his own. 

“Now I’m the grandpa,” Donghyuck tells him, and Taeil wants to break down and cry.

“You can’t put it off much longer,” Donghyuck warns, watching him. “If I suddenly go in the middle of the night you’re going to be stuck here forever. Clock’s ticking, babe.”

“How can you be so casual about it?” Taeil frowns. 

“Everything has its time,” Donghyuck says, in his Wise Sage Voice, and then cracks up, ending up wheezing. 

“Donghyuck,” Taeil whispers, pressing Donghyuck’s hands hard to his mouth. “I love you.”

“I love you, too,” Donghyuck replies. “I’ll find you in the afterlife. Hopefully I won’t be this decrepit version. I want to be hot again.”

Taeil laughs against Donghyuck’s fingers, feeling tears start to gather heavy in his throat. “I love you.”

“Ditto,” Donghyuck smiles. “Don’t be scared.”

“Thank you, for everything-” Taeil begins, but Donghyuck shushes him. 

“Oh, stop it,” Donghyuck scolds. “I know. I know.”

“Well, as long as you know,” Taeil murmurs, and gets to his knees. 

Donghyuck looks down at him, at the spectral sword plunged into Taeil’s chest, and wonders what it will feel like when he touches it. It seems more solid now than it has ever been, and Donghyuck stares at the carvings on the hilt, the glint of the steel. Taeil’s sword, a whole other lifetime ago.

Donghyuck grasps it tightly with both hands and pulls, and it slides out neatly with no resistance at all. Taeil gasps raggedly, looking up at Donghyuck holding the sword – real now, and heavy – in Donghyuck’s hands, and looks down at warm blood beginning to flow from the wound in his chest. For a horrifying moment he thinks that this is the final cruelty of the curse – to make Donghyuck watch him die for real, bleeding out onto the floorboards of their kitchen, and then to leave Donghyuck to deal with his body, empty and lifeless –

But a tingling begins in his feet, and Taeil looks down to see himself slowly disappear. It’s the most curious feeling – he’s as light as air. He quickly reaches out for Donghyuck, who drops the sword with a clang to take his hand, gripping it tight.

Donghyuck watches Taeil go, until he is standing alone in a brightly-lit kitchen with a warrior’s sword at his feet and a thousand questions in his head.

It takes some time for the tears to come.

*

Donghyuck becomes aware of the presence by his bed by degrees, though with his failing eyesight and the dark of his room he can hardly make out the figure’s features. For some reason he doesn’t feel scared, and he wonders if all old people are this fearless. What else can terrify you when death itself is so close all the time it’s like living right over a minefield? Even something like getting too excited over a really delicious cookie can be dangerous.

“Hello, Lee Donghyuck. We finally meet.”

“Who are you?”

“I’m… an old friend. Of Taeil’s.”

“That’s very vague.”

“I’ve been looking for you since you were born. I made a promise to Taeil that I think I can break, now.”

“You’re going to have to speak up, I can’t hear all that well these days.”

“I said, I’ve been looking for you since you were born!”

“Why?”

“To tie up loose ends. You’re overdue seventy-eight years, Lee Donghyuck.”

“Do I have to pay a fine?”

“What?”

“Do I have to pay a fine? It’s a joke.”

“Oh. No, no, you don’t have to pay anything.”

“Good. I don’t think I’ve got enough money lying around to pay a seventy-eight year-old fine, anyway. Taeil always nagged me for not being good about saving money.”

“This payment will not be in legal tender, I’m afraid.”

“You’re a Reaper, aren’t you?”

“Yes.”

“Are you Ten?”

“Oh, Taeil told you about me?”

“Yes. I’m sorry about the strawberry tarts.”

Ten smiles. 

“Time to go home, Donghyuck. Your mother has been waiting.”

“And Taeil? What about him?”

“I think he’ll be rather surprised to see you so quickly. He’s prepared himself to wait a few years.”

“Oh, then I’ll surprise him. Good, he doesn’t like surprises. He gets all cute and flustered. Right then, how do we do this?”

Ten reaches out a hand and lays a cool palm gently on Donghyuck’s chest. “Go well, Lee Donghyuck.”

Ten sits beside the cooling body and opens his binder, taking out a large seal and an inkpad. He carefully inks the seal before stamping ‘CLOSED’ over a document with the name ‘Lee Donghyuck’ right at the top, and takes a deep and satisfied breath. 

“ _Finally_.”

*

**Author's Note:**

> [twt](https://twitter.com/haetsalmoonbit) / [cc](https://curiouscat.me/haetsalmoonbit)


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